Introduction
I guess I could call this my main game at the moment. Maybe just the one I play the most, maybe the one I enjoy the most, but I play it a lot. I try to play it when I can, and I have a blast when I do. However, many people don't even know WHAT this game is. When they see it, it's either "that anime game with all the lolis" or "the game where the characters just fly at each other" and all the typical I only understand Street Fighter 4 therefore I'll hate everything else without any real cause phrase you can imagine. (I've heard a damn dedicated Athena main say he'd never touch the game cause it's an all female cast. Now THINK ABOUT THAT ONE.) But when some people start seeing trill stuff go down, like Wind Konoha, Akane goin' *clears throat* "ham", or even the hilarity of Scharlarot throwing chains at people, some people start getting interested. I mean, "this game is like Marvel, so why are you playing this when you could play Marvel?" (Actual quote from a Final Round Batt)
However, when some people start trying, they get lost. Especially if they don't have a somewhat knowledgeable person there to hold their hand. Not specifically because the game is hard, but because it's somewhat confusing. Straight up, Arcana Heart is the most complicated game to play, if you want to know details. There are subsystems on subsystems, stats for stats, and just all sorts of numbers flying everywhere. But without even getting all that, a lot of people get intimidated out the gate when they pick their character and then they have to pick "this... other... weird.. thingy... that... what the hell is this?"
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So, What is an Arcana?
Your arcana is the thing-er-ma-bobber you pick AFTER you select your character.
This screen right here (looks different in the US release).
And it's the screen where you, well, pick your arcana. But what does that mean to you?
In story, your arcana is supposed to be some magical being that helps you to fight .... or... something to that effect.... I dunno, I don't ask for details like that.
In action, though, it's obviously different. Your arcana is effectively choosing your "sidearm" if you will. It's not what you typically base your play around in any caliber, but it's important enough to make-or-break your character. In fact, some arcana go as far as being soft counters to others (such as Water being a soft-counter to Sound/Tone) and can even do a lot to harass characters themselves (i.e., Tyr vs Cathy)
There's really not a whole lot to talk about the what it is, unless you like mystical, mythical beings and are really intrigued by the story. But the big part is what they do for you
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Well then, what does my Arcana do for me?
Quite literally, it does just about everything that doesn't involve existing as your character.
The biggest thing your arcana does is give you a supplementary move list. Your E button is called your "arcana" button. If you just press it, you'll do a heavy attack (wallslam for 5E, launcher for 2E, another jumping attack for j.E, and few exceptions here and there), but when you start wiggling your stick and doing stuff that's where you start seeing arcana magic. Some moves aren't very useful, such as Love's reflector. Hell, I don't even remember if reflector is the proper word compared to DEflector. But other moves are good enough that you may pick the arcana for it. This includes but definitely isn't limited to Plant's (Nature) Vine.
On top of flat out giving you a movelist, the arcanas can change the properties of some of your moves (and other options) as well. Remember the E button from last paragraph? Well when you hold it, you do a guard break attack!.. well, the grounded ones, atleast (5[E] and 2[E]). This move is something that changes depending on your arcana. If you have Flower (Blossom), your [E]s will drain 50% of the damage they do. However, if you're in Fire, your [E] is straight unblockable. In some arcanas, they'll change your E's all together. Wind allows you to jump out of your E attacks (you normally cant), and Water adds more hitstun causing you to be safer on block. Possibly even at advantage, it depends on the character!
Along with changing your E, the arcanas might change some other properties. They can do stuff such as:
-Change your movement options (Wind gives you a triple jump and/or double dash.. Earth gives you a shield when you ground homing in)
-Add new properties to some things (If you backdash in Time, a clone appears to tank a hit for you. In Thunder (Lightning), when you forward dash, you're in a clash state (*looks at MBAC*)
-Effect how guarding works for you (In Water, you cannot take chip damage whatsoever. In Wind, your forward guard cancel is replaced with a pushblock)
and a few more. There's alot more, though.
Going back to the arcana's specific moves, you have this crazy thing called Extend Force. By itself it's kinda unique (I think the closest thing is like activating the whatever from Vampire Savior). When you activate it, you get special, passive abilities from your arcana. I don't compare it directly to X-Factor in Marvel 3 because you can't EF from block. You CAN, however, cancel a ground attack into EF, called an Extend Force Cancel. Now that's similar to XFactor, to Roman Canceling, Rapid Cancel, One More Cancel, Initiative Heat, Focus-Attack-Dash-Cancel, HD Cancel, etc etc.
But the properties. Again, it varies from arcana to arcana, some are useful, some you literally forget wtf they do they're so bad. Some of them give you a variety of speed boosts (not Time specific, but Time gives you the biggest speed boost). But more importantly, you get stuff such as your stats constantly increasing with every activation (Tyr), all of your attacks causing poison (Evil), or you gaining hyper armor (Earth). Some of the effects are arcana specific, such as your plants automatically blooming to the next level in Flower, or you temporarily being luckier in Luck. It's a wide range of stuff to help you out in one way or another... although don't expect much from Sacred (Holy), lol.
Oh, one more important note about Extend Force. It allows many characters to cancel moves into moves they normally couldn't, be it normal -> another normal, or normal into special. "Easy examples, plz?" Weiss can chain 5B -> 4B -> 5B, and Petra can cancel j.E into a special, respectively.
So, we've talked about moves, properties, and this crazy thing where the background changes and your character sometimes goes on crack. Could there possibly be more?
Yes. Stats.
Your arcana effects just 'bout every stat in the game except for your characters' guts and homing. Your HP changes depending on what arcana you (AND YOUR OPPONENT) chooses. How fast your gain meter by doing specific actions is based off of your arcana. Heck, in a couple of arcanas you cannot build meter by certain methods (the 3 main ones being attacking your opponent, blocking an opponents attack, and taking damage). Speaking of meter building, the speed in which it recharges after you panic and guard cancel (or use it period) changes depending on your arcana choice. Oh... I was talking about the arcana gauge (the bottom one, your super meter) the same thing applies to your Force Gauge! (The one on the top, in the corner) Not only are they two different stats, but they the rate they recover from certain actions are also different and individually change based off of your arcana. "Dafuq does that mean?" Well, your burst rates are different depending on what arcana you pick, but your EF recovery rates are different as well.
It probably sounds mind-numbing, and if you literally tried to keep track of every number.. you'd be very crazy, but could probably find a job pushing numbers for ESPN. You don't literally need to know that stuff to be able to hang, you'd just like to know the "big picture". That meaning stuff such as "Flower has the fastest burst recovery in the game" or "Metal cannot build meter by attacking."
So.. what all does this thing do for me again? You started ranting too much.
In short, your arcana;
-Gives you a move list under your character
-Can change the properties of things
-Gives you passive abilities, mainly through way of your Extend Force ( but few give you full-time passives)
-Takes all the numbers in the game and starts doing this （╯°□°）╯︵ sɹǝqɯnu
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Does this drastically change my character?
That's hard to give you a clear, by-the-book, definitive answer. For the most part it doesn't, but depending on the character and the arcana, it can.
If you have a Fiona mirror *points back up to the picture "The maid on the left with the sword that's clearly too big for her"*, you can likely see one Fiona player pick Wind and the other pick Sin. Those two are still playing Fiona, which means they have access to the exact same things that Fiona herself can do. They have the exact same normals, they still have the lackluster movement speed, they still hit like freight trains, so on and so forth. Where they differ, though is what comes after Grand Divide and all the bulls~~ they try and pull.
The closest comparison I could make would be CvS2 grooves. Those also don't change the character, but they change the mechanics behind the character. C-Sagat and K-Sagat are still going to c.fierce the hell out of each other because the grooves don't take that move away, it's just that K-Sagat hits harder when he's mad, and C-Sagat can say "f~~ this noise" and start doing roll canceled Tiger Shots. The extra stuff comes from the grooves.
It's not like Melty Blood: Actress Again's moon phase system. In that, the characters change depending on what phase you pick along with the mechanics changing. H-Nanaya can't EX guard, has the highest guard meter in the game, and has 6AAA rekkas while F-Nanaya has Warui Ne. They're completely different.
With all that being said, to play Fiona in either arcana (or any other one), you flat out have to be able to play Fiona. You're not going to be a scrub Fiona and scrape somebody that is worth their weight by literally picking an arcana. No, you're not even going to beat Cathy or Kira by picking Tyr. However, the arcana DOES make things different, possibly better for the character matchup, and maybe for the player. The Wind Fiona could have a bad sense of spacing or doesn't know how to GC effectively, so they could lean on their pushblock crutch to make life easier for them. Alternatively, the Sin Fiona might breath easier knowing they have control of the screen, so now they have sin balls to throw and lock space down for them.
That's not to say you can just "pick any arcana and it'll work" for a character. There are generally better choices for characters and subpar ones. You can play subpar and make it work, but it might not help with what you want as much as something else (i.e. I love Luck Konoha, but with a little work and different setups, I get a bigger benefit from playing Wind). There's not a combination you flat out CANNOT play, although I can't imagine why anybody would willingly play Sacred (unless you were just being random) or why any Scharlarot player would pick Punishment.
With all that being said, you can make practically make any combination work if you want to and work hard hard enough. That's not to say it'll be easy because some things just naturally help characters and others might not need them, but there aren't literal stop signs on your choice. It's mainly going to dissolve down to your skill with the character, and the arcana choice is going to help that out.
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And that, for all intents and purposes is What an arcana is and what it does for you. It's a helper. Sometimes it's a big enough help to be crutch, other times it might just be gold laces on your boxing shoes. Either way, it's there to aid you in a variety of ways from useful moves to letting you tank a beefier combo, and damn near everything else in between. I mean, if you play Luck and you're lucky, your arcana can literally save your life.
But hopefully that gives you some (or really, a lot) of insight into that one screen after you pick whatever loli can hold your interest for 2 minutes.
On that note, this has been the first Master of Mediocrity (and a ridiculously long one at that). I'M OUT.
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